


Stuck in a Hotel Room, Part II—The Driving Back to Boston Job

by crayonbreakygal



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 00:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6881263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayonbreakygal/pseuds/crayonbreakygal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey, we’re family.  A little strange, but...”  Eliot is having a hard time being the fifth wheel.  Takes place right after The Underground Job, season three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stuck in a Hotel Room, Part II—The Driving Back to Boston Job

**Author's Note:**

> A few things that inspired this story: the throwaway line at the end of Stuck in a Hotel Room; the fact that back then GPS wasn't always correct (It happened to me!); and that Eliot is the fifth wheel in Leverage. Oh, I've never written Eliot and Parker together. It was fun! Enjoy.

Stuck in a Hotel Room, Part II—The Driving Back to Boston Job

“Lying, greedy bitch.  He actually called her a lying, greedy bitch.”

Hardison was laughing on their way home from West Virginia.  Eliot and Hardison were riding in the van’s front, with Parker in the back fast asleep.  Hardison said something about Parker taking souls or something.  Eliot was attempting to concentrate driving on a rain-slicked two lane road.

Rain.  Eliot hated driving in the rain.  He hadn’t had time to clean up from being in the mine.  Hardison insisted that they leave pronto, almost like he had something to do.

“Better not have one of those tournaments,” Eliot mumbled.

“What?” Hardison asked, not exactly hearing what he’d said.

“Why are you in such a rush to get back?”

“Things to do, people to see, orcs to vanquish.”

“Yeah, right.”

This one was physically rough on all of them, especially Nate.  Triggering a cave-in in a mine was tricky, but luckily no one was seriously hurt.  Nate favored his shoulder, but nothing that Sophie couldn’t take care of if needed.

Swinging that pick axe had been challenging.  Eliot didn’t use heavy weapons like that.  His fists usually worked just fine on most occasions.  It took a lot to take that idiot down.

“So if you go down Route 10,” Hardison started to say.

“OK, why are we not on the interstate?  We are gonna get lost, you know that.”

“Hey, my GPS will work.”

Hardison’s GPS wasn’t working correctly, leading them to a flooded out road in the middle of nowhere.

“OK, so maybe not.  How was I supposed to know it was gonna rain cats and dogs today?  I can’t predict the rain.  Just be careful turning Lucille around.”

Hardison’s ability to name objects he worked with sometimes got on Eliot’s nerves.  It was a vehicle, not a dog.  Blowing up the first van had almost killed Hardison.  What would he do if they lost 2.0 to a flood?

“Just chill, man.”

“Watch out for frogs,” Parker said in her sleep.

Parker was parked in the back, blanket tucked under her chin.  That con had taken almost everything out of her.  She usually did not grift, but with Sophie playing the lying, greedy bitch, Parker had to get her hands dirty.  There weren’t any air ducts to crawl through.  They needed a read on that attorney general.  Parker did that and more.  She saved the con, Eliot thought. 

Hardison laughed when he heard the statement.  “You should see that notebook.  She writes down everything.  I’m talking everything.  How much I touch my chin.  What that lady had for lunch.  Just weird.”

“Did she write anything down in there about me?”

“I wasn’t paying attention.  The only reason I know she did about me was she mentioned it before crawling under the blanket.”

Eliot limped along maneuvering the van, hoping to make it back to civilization before the rain thwarted his driving skills.

“You drive like my grandmother.”

“It’s raining.”

“So?”

“You can go faster than twenty.”

“I can’t see.”

They bantered back and forth until the last small town they had encountered came into view.

“I do not want to spend the night in this thing,” Eliot pointed out.

“Let’s just hope they have room at the inn.”

“Ha, very funny.”

“No, that inn we passed.  Turn here.”

The parking lot wasn’t totally full, so maybe they were in luck.  If they’d taken the interstate, there was no way there’d be any rooms available. 

“Stay here.  I’ll go get us rooms.”

Eliot thought it might be easier for him to acquire rooms.  They were in West Virginia, not Boston.  Two men traveling together with a female, none of which looked like they were related.  It was business, Eliot thought.  Business.  Maybe it wasn’t between Parker and Hardison?  Who the hell knew between Nate and Sophie?  He didn’t even want to know what they were doing.

He was now the fifth wheel.  He wasn’t the fifth wheel when he first joined the team.  Sure, it looked like Nate and Sophie would eventually hook up, or sleep together or whatever the two of them would call it.  They’d known each other for a significant amount of time and hadn’t gone that far.  Eliot did not understand how they did hold out that long.  Hell, he certainly couldn’t.

“So?” Eliot said as Hardison opened the door to the van.

“One room.  That’s all I could get.”

“We just need to ride this thing out.”

“Oh, I told them I was here with my family.  Let’s just keep it on the down low.”

“Hey, we’re family.  A little strange, but...”

Hardison chuckled at that.  Taking the wheel, he moved the van over to where the room was located.

“End of the line.  Only one right next to us.”

Strategy-wise, Eliot liked the configuration.  But they didn’t need any strategy, just a place to stay to dry out.

“Are we home?” Parker said, sleepily stretching her arms above her head.

“Nope.  Rain washed out the road.”

“Oh man.  I’m hungry.”

Eliot did not know where she put the amount of cereal and junk food she ate.  She weighed next to nothing, at least she did to him. If she ate right, like he’d suggested to her many times, she’d probably put on some weight.  Or knowing Parker, probably not.  She never stopped moving.

“Room.  Then food.”

Hardison was right.  They’d get in the room and then figure out food.  Grabbing the bags, the three of them sprinted to the door.  It took Hardison three tries before he could open damn thing.  They piled through quickly, all shaking out their hair, except for Hardison, who shook out the bag where his laptop was stored. 

“I’m gonna go grab us some grub.  There better be hot water when I come back.”

Eliot pointed to both of them to make sure they understood there’d be hell to pay if there wasn’t hot water.  He was sure that Hardison would listen.  He wasn’t so sure that Parker would.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Parker said as she saluted him.

She peeled off her thin jacket and threw it to the floor.  It made that splat noise as it did.  Hell, there’d be no hot water left, he thought.  The red shirt that Parker had on was clinging in all the wrong, or right places if his mind were to go there.  Dammit, Parker.  He willed his mind away from that thought and wrenched the door open.  At least he wouldn’t be as dirty as he was before.

At the diner across the street, he ordered three soups, three sandwiches, assorted drinks and pie to go.  He really didn’t want to eat with prying eyes plus the fact that the overalls he had on were getting too uncomfortable to wear.  Eliot hoped that there was something in his bag that hadn’t gotten drenched in the time that it took for Hardison to unlock the door to the room.

As Eliot sprinted across the parking lot, he contemplated what he’d find when he got there.  He just hoped that it wasn’t a naked Parker lying across the bed, fast asleep.  Hardison probably wouldn’t let her get that far, but he really didn’t know these days what the two of them were up to.  Being the fifth wheel was making him more and more uncomfortable as time went on.  Why couldn’t they be six instead of five?  Of course, that sixth could be a guy.  Nope, not going there.

As he entered the room, Hardison sat on the bed, shirt off but looking clean.  He must have listened.  Parker, on the other hand, was still in the bathroom.

“I told her.  Rain let up?”

“Nope.  It probably won’t for a while.”

“I just hope Lucille is gonna be OK.”

“It’s a van, Hardison,” Eliot growled menacingly.

Hardison looked offended.  “You, you just don’t understand.  She’s my baby, Eliot.”

Eliot shook his head in disgust.  Striding over to the bathroom door, he pounded on it to get Parker’s attention.

“What is taking so long?”

“Hold your horses.”

Hardison had already started digging into the bag of food that Eliot brought.  Handing Eliot a soup container, he pulled the rest out of the bag and placed it on the old desk that took up part of a wall opposite the bed.  Eliot almost facepalmed.  He just noticed that there was only one bed.  Sure, it was a king, but still.

“Hardison, missing something?”

“Um, plastic? Here it is,” he explained as he searched the bag and found the utensils. 

“One bed?  How the hell?”

“It’s all they had.  Geez, Eliot.”

“Parker’s in the middle.”

Hardison put his hands up like whatever and dug into his food. Eliot downed his soup quickly, realizing that he was really hungry in addition to cold and wet.

“Hurry up,” he yelled at the door.

It opened to an almost naked Parker, wrapped in a towel that really wasn’t big enough to cover much other than the essentials.  Hardison turned quickly away and Eliot groaned.  Hell, he wasn’t turning.  It wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before.  Parker tended to flash him more than the others.  Sophie would scowl and tell Parker to get dressed, Nate would turn pink and cough uncomfortably as he shielded his eyes, Hardison’s eyes would bug out and he’d turn so fast he’d almost get whiplash.  Eliot did none of the above.  It didn’t seem to bother Parker, so he wouldn’t let it bother him.

“Bag’s in here,” she announced as she bent over to pick it up.

“Parker?” he asked as the towel almost slipped.

“Sorry,” she smiled his way.

Hardison peeked, then turned again like he hadn’t peeked in the first place.  If Eliot didn’t know that Hardison was carrying a torch for her, he would have done something about Parker’s tendency to tease him.  He always wondered if Parker did it on purpose, or she really didn’t know the effect she had on other men, and sometimes women.  Sophie was always discreet when changing in front of them, only showing skin for Nate.  He’d actually caught Sophie attempting to get under the mastermind’s skin more than once, flashing Nate.  She rolled her eyes his way and proceeded to glance Nate’s way.  It was always so obvious.  With Parker, nothing was obvious.

Parker made another face at him as she closed the door to the bathroom.

“She gonna kill me,” Hardison mumbled as he opened his sandwich.

Eliot couldn’t agree more.  The girl, no woman, because she was all woman, would be the death of them both.  He’d never poach another man’s woman.  Hardison had made it clear very early on that he had designs on Parker, whether Parker reciprocated or not.  Sometimes it made it so damn hard to work with both of them.  He always knew Sophie was way out of his league, plus all the baggage between Nate and Sophie.  He wouldn’t touch her with a ten foot pole.  And he probably wouldn’t have been able to survive Nate’s wrath anyway.  Any time a mark had his eyes on Sophie, Nate would just boil under the surface.  Eliot valued his life a bit more than to take on that consequence.

Hardison, on the other hand, still hadn’t really made a move on Parker.  One or two kisses did not mean that Parker had any clue that Hardison even liked her, much less wanted her in his bed.  And there was the crux of the conversation.  Hardison was a prude.  He had to be.  Any time Parker showed any skin, any time Nate paid the least bit of attention to Sophie, any time Sophie skillfully played a mark sexually, Hardison would be wigged out.  It was almost like the man was ten again.

Parker finally exited the bathroom, steam escaping as she did.  Her pajamas looked like they survived the water, which hopefully boded well for whatever was at the bottom of his bag.  As he unzipped it, he noticed that it did not contain his clothes at all.  It contained Parker’s gear.

“Where are my clothes?”

“Your bag,” Hardison said as he finished his food.

Eliot held up the harness.

“Oops,” Parker said, her mouth full of sandwich.

The rain started to pound the windows and roof as Parker said oops.  That meant his bag was still in the van, which sat in the pouring down rain.

“Please tell me you have extra clothes in that bag, Hardison?” Eliot asked as he sighed at Parker’s joke.

“Might be some sweats in there somewhere.”

“Find them,” he said as he threw the bag down on the floor.

“Can’t sleep in a harness.  Although one time,” Parker started.

Eliot did not want her to finish that thought with him in the room. He was already bothered by her lack of clothes moments before.  The thought of her in a harness and nothing else might put him over the edge.  As he shut the door to the small bathroom, he noticed the bruise on the side of his head.  It hadn’t been there before, but there had been dirt and coal dust all over him, so he probably missed it.  Gingerly, he peeled his clothes off.  Bruises were part of the job.  His job.  Sure, this time Nate had his own bruises, but the rest of them did not.  He completed his job, mostly.  He couldn’t do anything about the boss and his bruises.  It was the only way to make the con work.

As Eliot climbed in under the spray, he noticed that there was hot water.  Now that was a miracle.  Not three minutes though into the shower, it quickly turned cold, then hot, then cold again.  The temperature would not regulate.  As quickly as he could, he washed off the day’s grime with Parker’s shampoo and soap.  The other stuff that the inn provided just stank.  Now he’d smell like Parker too.  Shit.

Drying off quickly before the room turned cold, he wrapped the towel around his waist and opened the door.

Both Parker and Hardison were watching television, sitting beside each other on the bed. He watched as Hardison kept looking over at the thief, but never attracting Parker’s attention. 

“Clothes?”

Hardison grabbed his bag and pulled out a pair of sweats and threw them at Eliot.

“They better be clean.”

“Just, just don’t go there, Eliot.  Of course they are.  If you don’t believe me, go ahead on out in that rain that just now turned to hail.”

“Looks like it’s snowing,” Parker added as she looked out the window.

Eliot pulled the curtain aside to see the ground covered in white.  It wasn’t even five in the afternoon, but it looked to be much later than that.

“Gonna ding Lucille,” Hardison said to no one in particular.

“She’ll survive,” Eliot answered back.

Eliot quickly dressed in the sweats and ate his sandwich.  The three of them watched Mythbusters until Hardison yawned to the point where his jaw almost cracked.  Parker slid under the blanket and snuggled down, only the top of her head visible.  Eliot didn’t know whether he’d be able to sleep with the two of them right next to him.  His sleep schedule at its best was not that great.  He couldn’t remember the time when he’d gotten more than three or four hours at the most, except when he’d been hurt badly.  Then he’d sleep the sleep of the dead, but that usually was because of a head injury or some other catastrophe. 

Eliot awoke a few hours later with Parker wrapped around him.  She was overly warm and soft, but he didn’t mind.  Surely she’d wake up and move away from him when she realized who she was snuggling.  Her fingers were tangled in his hair, nose buried in his neck.  Shit, she was really playing with fire.  He’d have to move her soon.  As gradually as he could, he removed her hands from around his naked waist.  Then he tried to peel her off his back.  As he did this, her leg came around his front and collided with his stomach and other vital parts.  He tried not to groan, but he did unwillingly.

That’s it, he thought.  When they got back to Boston, he’d go through his contacts and find someone who wasn’t attached and spend the weekend with her doing nothing but staying in bed.  Parker was going to kill him in more ways than one.

Eliot pushed her leg back and rolled over to face her, just so he could combat whatever else her sleeping body had in store for him.  Before he could get settled again, she had pulled him to her and sighed against him, tucking her head to his chest.  He could feel the puffs of her breath as she slept. Yes, killing him slowly.  His arm was stuck underneath her head because she had moved too quickly for him to move it.  He could feel her under her thin shirt she slept in and was aware that was all she had on in addition to her underwear.  Next time, he’d insist that Hardison sleep in the middle.

Maybe he could turn a negative into a positive if he could get Parker turned the other way. Only as he saw a large male hand on her hip made him realize that Hardison was now spooning against the back of Parker.  What was it with the two of them?  Parker couldn’t hug to save her life.  Hardison didn’t know when it was appropriate to touch Parker because he didn’t want her thinking he was too forward.  He wondered if he should just take a picture to show them later.

It was when Parker’s hand started roaming that Eliot knew he had to get out of that bed and pronto.  Pulling a pillow from the bed, Eliot made his way over to the only chair in the room.  There was no way he was going to sleep now after Parker’s antics.

“Eliot, come back to bed,” Parker whispered.

“You, you were awake?”

Parker snorted.  “Well, duh.”

“Parker, it’s just, don’t do that.”

“Do what?” she answered back.

“Hands.”

“Oh.  That.  What’s the problem?”

He couldn’t see her expression in the dark.  With the rain and the thunder, the lights had gone off while they were sleeping.  The only light was from the lightning that crashed off in the distance.

“It’s just, touching.”

“I thought you liked touching.”

Shit, he thought.  He really didn’t like where this was going.  Rising from the chair, he felt his way to the bathroom, hoping to get some peace and quiet there and not continue this conversation and wake up Hardison.

“Hey?” Parker’s voice sounded almost next to him.

“Go back to sleep.”

“Now I can’t. My heater is gone.”

He fumbled around, coming into contact with Parker as she shifted into his vision. 

“That’s not my arm,” Parker informed him, making him wrench the hand back quickly.

“Geez, Parker.  It’s hard to see in here.”

“I thought your ninja skills could make you see in the dark.”

“Well, I’m out of practice, OK?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No, Parker.  Well, just a little perplexed and a bit frightened.  Yeah, maybe.”

Parker’s hand touched his arm.  He bet she could see much better than he could in the dark.  Thunder crashed much closer now, which meant that the storm was working its way over to where they were staying.  Parker jumped again when the lightning flashed in the room.  She moved closer to him.

“Not my favorite.”

“Not mine either.  In Oklahoma, sometimes these storms meant tornados.  There’s not much wind with this one, here.  I don’t think West Virginia gets tornados.”

“How do you know, for sure I mean?” Parker asked, having moved into his arms.

“I don’t.  I guess I could look it up or something.  It’s gonna be over soon, I promise.”

“I don’t like the loud noise or the bright, flashy light.”

Another crash of thunder had her holding onto him, body pressed up against him in fear.

“Why don’t you go back to bed?”

“Because you’re supposed to protect me, us I mean.  Protect.”

She sounded a bit flustered, but was it because of the storm or the fact that she had plastered herself onto him and wouldn’t let go?

“Not gonna happen against a storm, sweetheart.”

“There was this one time, big storm, bunny was always there to protect me.  He took her, hid her somewhere to punish me.  I had to look all over that house, during the storm, to find her.  The next day, I blew that sucker up. It was too easy.”

Her grip on him tightened to almost hurting.  He’d let her tell her story first.  Eliot really wanted to hear what she did next.

“Blew what up, Parker?”

“The house.  Then he’d never be able to hide my bunny again.”

“Parker, did you hurt whoever he was?”

“I wish.  He’d gone to work not ten minutes before.  I must have timed it wrong.”

So she intended to hurt him for taking her bunny away from her.  That was so fucked up, he thought.  She blew up a house because her foster father had hid her stuffed bunny.

“That was your foster family, right?”

Since he’d never heard what happened to her real family, he often wondered what had happened.  Eliot put that on his mental check list to complete later, to figure out what made Parker tick.

“They only did it for the money.  It made me sad.”

Eliot could see a bit of her because of how pale her skin was.  She was warm, smelled of sleep.  He wanted her to keep talking, to tell him what had happened to her during her childhood.  Eliot had only gotten her story in bits and pieces.  Her brother dying, Archie teaching her how to steal, it all came out disjointed.  It was like she was a jigsaw puzzle that he needed to solve to understand her.  He was the one that said she was crazy first.  Now he realized that she was the good kind of crazy, his kind of crazy, the team’s kind of crazy.  They needed her around, he needed her around, definitely Hardison needed her around.

“People aren’t always nice.  We’re your family now.  No one’s gonna hide Mr. Bunny, or whatever his or her name is.”

“I know that.  Just don’t get hurt or put in jail or sacrifice yourself and get shot or leave because Nate is being a dick or because…”

Eliot grabbed her, pulled her to him to stop her tirade just so she wouldn’t wake up Hardison.

“Not gonna leave if I can help it, Parker.”

“Yeah, but still.  You do tend to get knocked around too much.  I worry.”

She worried about him?  Eliot didn’t know what to make of that.

“At least you don’t get shot as much as Nate does.”

Eliot snorted at that.  That was Sophie’s cross to bear. 

“I’ve been lucky so far.  And I have been shot.  Not fun.”

“Me too.”

Eliot pulled back to look her in the face, what he could see of her face.

“You’ve been shot?”

“Yeah.  Just once.  It hurt.  Early on in my career.  That’s why I’m always quiet.”

His hand came up on its own volition and touched her cheek.  He could feel as she smiled.

“I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

“No guarantees.”

“No, unfortunately.”

Before he could move away from Parker, her lips collided with his.  For a few seconds he thought he should pull away.  She was Hardison’s, well, he thought that she was Hardison’s.  Only the kiss indicated that was not a definite. 

Letting go of him, she slowly dropped her arms and backed away from him.

“Thanks,” she whispered in his ear.

Turning, she left him in the bathroom to contemplate what had just happened.  Parker was just so confusing to deal with sometimes.  She liked Hardison.  He knew that.  Maybe it was just a thank you, something she thought she had to do to tell him he was a part of the team.  Only holding her there, if just for a few moments, told him that maybe they could have been something more.  He couldn’t.  There was no way he could.  In his heart, Eliot felt that he never could go there, with anyone.  Maybe one day, he would be ready.  It was doubtful.  There was too much baggage, too much badness, too much hurt that filled him.  His job now was to protect the other four so they could do their jobs.  That he would relish until they tired of it.  And they would, eventually.

Making his way back to the bed, he sunk down to the softness of blankets.  Parker didn’t cuddle again that night and didn’t mention what they shared in the dark bathroom.

The next few days were crazy with a new con and planning for it.  That didn’t mean the last job wasn’t there with them.  Eliot figured out that Nate and Sophie shared more than just a room, but he wasn’t going to point it out, until Parker had to point it out.  As usual, Hardison was himself on this.

“It’s kinda warm in here. Why would he…” Hardison’s eyes lit up with recognition. “You, you guys. Just. Just because it rained and you got stuck.”

“We all were stuck,” Parker added.

“In a hotel room. Alone. With nothing to do.”

“Hey, we were stuck in a hotel room, with nothing to do,” Parker told the others.

“But we didn’t do anything that we might later regret,” Hardison said as he looked at the guilty parties.

“Speak for yourself,” Eliot said as he winked at Parker.

“Wait? What? What are y’all not telling me?”

Parker smiled his way and winked back.  They were OK.  Both of them were gonna be OK.  If Hardison was just a bit jealous, maybe he’d make that move on Parker now instead of waiting.  Eliot had learned his lesson on waiting.  It never worked the way one wanted.


End file.
